Our homes are made for living, no matter what that might look like

My style is a little bit (OK, a lot) country. I like simplicity and comfort in my home. It provides a nice dichotomy to my busy, mom-of-two-kids lifestyle. ‘Pure Style Home: Accessible Ideas for Every Room in Your Home’ by Jane Cumberbatch isn’t really a decor book. It’s more a real-life book, which is really appealing to all of us, isn’t it? The author describes herself as “a pioneer of the simple and natural approach to interior decoration.”

I like this book in a physical sense — it’s small, compact and easy to read. The concepts are divided first by elements, like colour and texture, and then by the ways the pieces can be put together and used in a real-life context. If you fancy yourself an elaborate decorator with extravagant taste, this probably isn’t the book for you. I, personally, learned a lot from this book — did you know just how many “whites” there are? — about how patterns, textures and colours can work together to create a look. In the past, I’ve placed my focus, perhaps somewhat erroneously, on the objects in a space — a bookshelf or a throw pillow — and less on the traits of the items — pine vs. cherry, chevron vs. houndstooth.

“Even the most frenetic workaholics need to sink into a comfortable chair, put their feet up and contemplate life. It’s good to be nurtured by music, soft cushions or a blazing fire,” Cumberbatch writes. “Living rooms are tailored to meet the demands of their occupants — families with small children require both battle-proof chairs and fabrics, while single individuals with no danger of sabotage by sticky hands might make a sumptuous wall-to-wall white scheme their priority.”

The point here is that our homes are made for living, no matter what that might look like. That’s what this book focuses on — how to make our homes work best for us by being resourceful with what we already have. Pure Style Home also includes an interesting variety of DIY projects, from making preserves to revamping a bathroom wall cabinet. Although this isn’t meant to be a book of how-to’s, I liked that there were examples of how to put Cumberbatch’s theories into action. My only complaint is that these projects were too few and far between.

Rather than telling you what to do, Pure Style Home helps to teach you the foundation of how to determine what kind of space you want and how to attain it.